“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Monday, 26 November 2018

Review of 'The Wake' by Voivod

14 albums in, Voivod still sound like no other
metal band.

Nobody
writes riffs like Voivod. Their riffs are like lemons (bear with me) – they’re
so dissonantly sour that they make you want to scrunch up every muscle in your
face, and whilst some people may hate this sensation, for others (strange folk
like myself) it’s the entire appeal.

Even
after the death of their guitarist Piggy, the Canadian prog thrash weirdoes
continued to deliver the same positively fucked-up guitar sound on their last
album Target Earth (which happens to
be the first album I ever reviewed on this blog). My review of it was
criminally short and doesn’t really get across how much I enjoyed that album. It
was one gloriously twisted riff after another and the frantic percussion was equally
satisfying. My only gripe was that it didn’t really explore any new territory
for the band.

The Wake meanwhile
explores lots of new territory - especially in its latter half. Opener ‘Obsolete
Beings’ commences with eerier rotor-blade-like whirring and then dives into a fairly
conventional (by Voivod standards) thrash riff. It allows the listener to ease
their way in before entering the tumult that follows on ‘The End of Dormancy’ –
from here on in the pace changes multiple times per track as the band throw you
from one riff to the next. Fourth track ‘Iconspiracy’ is a particular highlight,
opening with spidery chugging before plummeting into what may be the first
blast beat I’ve heard on a Voivod album.

As mentioned
earlier, it’s the second half of the album where the band really get into their
sonic adventuring. The band start to play with epic string sections and the transitions
per song seems to increase. ‘Always Moving’ is bustling with creative ideas
from its off-kilter thrash riff to its zero-gravity verse made up woozy
chromatics, and features a brief but gorgeous guitar solo towards the end. Closing
twelve minute track ‘Sonic Mycelium’ meanwhile ends up being a mash-up of every
track that preceded it, building up to a climax of strings before dissipating
back into dissonance (they could have ended it melodically, but that wouldn’t
be very Voivod-esque would it).

Belanger’s
snarling vocals seem slightly weaker on The
Wake and at times they take on an irritating nasal quality that reminds me
of Dave Mustaine (yeah, I’m not a fan of Mustaine’s voice). The sci-fi lyricism
and Belanger’s willingness to break into comical na-na-na-ing stops me from
taking them too seriously, but considering that every other instrument is
perfectly orchestrated, it’s difficult to ignore. Given that the band are all aging, I think it's something I'll just have to accept - you can replace worn guitar strings, but worn vocal cords aren't so easy to fix.